The present invention is directed generally to electrical connection assemblies and, more particularly, to an assembly for terminating a flat electrical cable having a plurality of electrical transmission or signal conductors and ground conductors arranged in a closely-spaced array within a strip of insulative material.
In recent years flexible, flat multiconductor cable has been used with increasing frequency in the communications, data processing and transportation industries. Flat cable is particularly well suited for electrically connecting high density banks of circuit elements used in modern computers. To effect these connections rapidly and economically, a variety of different conductors, connector assemblies or "mass termination" systems have been developed. Conventional solder and crimp type terminations and, more recently, insulation-piercing terminations have been satisfactorily employed in these assemblies to terminate the conductors of the flat cable with the connector. One flat cable connector illustrative of such prior art devices is that disclosed in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 855,636, filed Nov. 29, 1977, now U.S. Pat. No. 4,160,574.
Although these prior art termination assemblies have met with some commercial success, they all suffer from the disadvantage that they are not suitable for use with cable having very closely spaced conductors. For example, insulation-piercing terminations used in the prior art are useful only with cable having conductors spaced at intervals of about 0.050 inch or more. When the conductors are spaced at intervals of about 0.030 inch or less, conventional insulation-piercing termination devices are susceptible to shorting which is, of course, unacceptable.
Accordingly, all known connection assemblies used with flat cable having very closely spaced conductors employ solder-type terminations and arrangements of components which effect a greater spacing between the conductors to facilitate the soldering operation. These assemblies are not only relatively expensive, but the soldering operation is labor intensive, thereby increasing their installation cost.